Kylian Mbappé missed his first ever World Cup penalty, with the shot saved by Bounou in the quarterfinal.
"Hey guys, Daniel here from Mario's team, and the controversies have already started for the France and Morocco game. Now, if you were following us yesterday, we pointed out the fact that the officiating crew for this game is all people from Argentina, which was a very weird decision considering that Argentina is still competing in this tournament. Now, Mbappe was awarded a penalty in this game, a very clear foul, but what ended up happening was that the ref, who was from Argentina, ended up taking a very long time at the VAR, and a lot of people are saying that he kind of iced Mbappe a little bit. Mbappe went on to miss the penalty, which he doesn't usually do. His conversion rate for the World Cup in penalties is something like 75% or something like that, so he doesn't usually miss. So that's already kind of being looked at as a big controversy. There's still a lot of game left, and to add actually to this, I think should be mentioned, is that the race for the Golden Boot is between Mbappe and Messi right now. So Messi was up one goal going into this penalty kick. So if Mbappe had made the penalty, he would have tied Messi in the race for the Golden Boot. So people are kind of pointing that out too as maybe some reason for the refs to try to sabotage the penalty kick. Who knows, really. I mean, it could just be that the ref wanted to make sure that it was a penalty kick, knowing that this is a big game and that it would be under a lot of scrutiny. So a lot of game left. I guess we'll find out if any more weird calls happen."
💬 Discussion
Kylian Mbappé missed his first ever World Cup penalty, with the shot saved by Bounou in the quarterfinal.